General Angus Campbell on the State of the Region

I propose to the general of what we would do is actually have a conversation rather than a speech angus does great speeches some as those of you would know who came to our conference on more in 2025 but we thought this was a good opportunity to actually have a slightly less formal discussion it indeed you can have a less formal discussion sitting on a stage with 150 people sitting in front of you and a number of TV cameras but we'll give it a go away Angus ooh and what I wanted to do was actually to to start with the speech you you did give a very consider presentation at the dinner for our war in 2025 conference which was about the re-emergence of political warfare I was wondering for this audience can you give us a brief precis of what it is she said that evening and in particular what is it Angus that makes political warfare something that autocracies can pursue successfully and democracies are less good at sure thanks and thanks so much for the opportunity to come and join you today my speech was really focused on that wide range of competitive options that powers can choose should they wish to do so and that some do choose and I use examples of Russia's actions whether it's in the Crimea or in some of the states bordering in Eastern Europe that when the expected response is below the threshold of a violent conflict response that some states will see advantage in moving to a competition that's beyond instead of or without regard to what we might describe as the expected rules and norm of an international order now this is not new it has been a truism of state behavior through history but I do think that we are seeing a reamer gence of this form of behavior and that it is challenging because its very definition is to act in ways and in mediums of communication between states that does not elicit a violent response a war response as we were traditionally regarded from the state that is being affected this is challenging because it either directly or quietly erodes the international norms behaviors rules expectations and so has the potential to undermine the entire system and to encourage a proliferation of that formal behavior now that's not something I think that Australia or any state who is committed to the opportunities the values the advantages of interstate discourse that is managed by rules it's not in our interest whatsoever and so I think it's a conversation to be had and a question to be asked about how do we understand that form of conduct and indeed how do we consider appropriate responses or preferably mitigations to see that form of conduct less likely to occur anger so the democracy's always destined to lose a political warfare battle no but it is historically speaking apparently more difficult simply because as democracies we are organically emergence in the different areas and sectors of civil society and governments private enterprise and alike less aligned less coordinated less focused in a whole of state capacity and that is something that as I spoke of in my speech is more typically true of authoritarian powers the efforts and the control that the state asserts upon the people as opposed to in our democratic construct the people asserting upon the state and so while it's harder it's in no way assured that it cannot be defended against or responded to but it is harder a country like Australia I think most people here in this room would would say that democracy is sort of a natural strength actually it's one of the attractive features of our political system but do you see that we have any particular strengths when it comes to the political warfare contest first I completely agree with that Peter Australia's democracy its civil society the sense of ourselves and that which we project into the world is massively powerful soft power strength for Australia and for all democracies but I'd also add that we do have and we have grown better and better at a developing and tights whole of governments constructs within the sense of the federal government and the federal to States alignment there's a great deal of effort to seek to make sure that we don't see agencies and departments and elements of government operating at random or at odds or without alignment to the degree that I think when I first joined the army many years ago now it was not apparent it is much more apparent now and the habits of cooperation across departments and agencies in the Commonwealth is very strong and it's regard as the norm of business and when you're not doing that it is notably odd and commented upon so I think that's also a great strength that's interesting that's a feature really of perhaps the post 9/11 world to Mangus I think that we've become that one year I would actually go back to the modern emergence of this whole of government mine said to me emerges out of the lead-up to and the experience that challenged us during the inter FET operation in East Timor Timor Leste now that was first step after a generation absence conflict since their departure from Vietnam what one more question on the political warfare front or countering I suppose the effects of political warfare I I agree with you I think it's inherently a whole-of-government challenge but how do you see this from the ADF perspective what's the role of the Defence Force in this situation look a defence force can do many things in contributing to building and supporting security capacity building relationships and understanding in our region with key partners with those who we don't understand so well that's a very important element of contribution there are aspects in terms of defensive capacity that we can offer and I think with the Australian signals Directorate in the cyber space that's true but whole-of-government yes and a more broadly conscious whole of nation about how does each elements of our of our nation operate an environment where in the in the cyber sense we are accessible potentially vulnerable if we're not conscious we see a very mature approach to this in our finance and banking system because they need to be and they have been across a range of threat hackers they've been under some form of pressure for some time now now I think that there are many ways that you can consider how to be both an open society but one that is appropriately protective of its interests and its values and I would have function in the world presenting the that best Australia we wish to offer the ADF is a part of it but it's only a very small component so I guess I wanted to turn to the overall strategic situation you may know that a few weeks ago I wrote an article for the Australian and of course I would never seek to exaggerate any of my judgments and those in those pieces but I said that I thought we were moving into essentially a new Cold War situation am I being too pessimistic CDF looky I think it is it'll sell you a newspaper a column and it's something that we should be conscious of simply because we should know our history but history doesn't repeat and history can inform and guide if mr. Google is correct when I typed in the United States is largest trading partner it tells me that it's loads of trading partners China that is a fundamental it's a profound difference to the construct of that period of history that you speak of and so I would rather offer the question how do we find that constructive way forward between and with those two great powers in this world who are going to be the most influential relate the bilateral relationship on this planet for the foreseeable future and I have not heard anyone describe that construct that you've offered as a preferred future so best we work on how to see other better futures emerge and I don't think it is assured I don't think it is where we are necessarily going and I think there's a lot of option a lot of space to see better paths I'm a fan of I think it's the Mark Twain comment that history doesn't repeat but it rhymes angus in' and i think that you've you've mentioned the elephant in the room china china is for all of its enormous strengths and for all of its importance as a trade partner with with the US and with us and and with hundreds of countries or well over 100 countries china is out to disrupt the international order so what's your perspectives on how the international system should manage this fundamental challenge the international order as we know it is not now and has never been fixed and defined any mutable it evolves and so i'm expecting it will continue to evolve one of the pressures of that evolution will be the present the scale of influence and the interests of China as it will be other great powers that is the way the order has always developed but there are a number of other very significant centers of power on the planet that have a considerable interest both in having an order seeing it adhered to seeing it evolve with the broadest consensus possible of nations and senses of power economic and political influence in the world so the United States clearly has been a significant continues to be a significant set of the International rules-based order so does the European Union so do many of the states now in the space of the great powers sweeping across India Indonesia to Japan and so do quite reasonably the expectations of Brazil and countries the the emergent BRICS now my point here is the effort made into international institutions multilateral fora into seeing the order that we have respected and the order that we have evolved and changed through the bodies and mechanisms that do with in their constructs enable evolution that is the way that we should expect and we should call out that expectation that the international order changes in an orderly fashion if we simply look to the world from the perspective that might is right there are very few countries on the planet who prosper we certainly do not we are we are an enormous beneficiary of a rules-based international order and of a steady and la hope overwhelmingly consensus driven change to that order and I think that we need to recognize where our prosperity has emerged from and to champion the idea both of order and orderly change defense and and the ADF has been I guess so part of that order establishing system not necessarily just in the sense of you know the operational activities that we've been involved in but also through the type of engagement that we have with with countries I think back to when I was in the department Aengus leading our annual strategic dialogue with China and the Chinese a three-star general counterpart that I was dealing with said to me you know Peter that after Pakistan Australia is one of the countries that we have a closest defense relationship with and I thought that was a very revealing comment both about China and about Pakistan in some ways but it nevertheless reflected the fact that you know we had four we have now for 20 years or more had a had a strategic dialogue with China how do you see the relationship from the point of view of the ADF and the PLA the type of contact that you've had in your roles so this is I think that 22nd you know our strategic dialogue and it's been continuous throughout that time we've got a constructive relationship it's a modest relationship in size but quite constructive it connects at the most senior levels the Secretary of the Department Greg Moriarty and myself with key PLA leaders down through engagements at two-star level and then engagement in exercise activity and engagement relationship building perspective sharing down to the soldier and junior officer level it is modest and it is one which we're very comfortable with and see the value in continuing if you don't have mechanisms of dialogue and pathway for understanding you're not in a good position to gain and and be able to recognize the range of perspectives playing upon any particular security issue that might arise so I think that we move beyond your description it is not a relationship of scale and of depth of substance that you see in our alliance relationship with the United States or our enduring heritage relationship with the United Kingdom for example or indeed with the scale and strength of the relationship we have with Indonesia now very near neighbor but it is constructive and useful for both nations and so I'm very pleased about that looking at a broader strategic environment what are the things that keep you awake at night beyond all those pesky possums sure country look we have entered a period which I think can be characterized at least at one level of analysis as one of strategic competition or potentially a period that's going to be characterized as one a strategic competition between great powers now there's also a great deal of strategic cooperation and that needs to be recognized as well however the return to attention of the tensions and interests and security considerations of great powers is going to be something I think that will be part of the professional life of any young person joining the national security community for some time at the same time we are not past the challenges of a modern form of terrorism now I say modern not meaning Islamist jihadist I mean the fact that technology now empowers individuals in extraordinarily beneficial ways but also it creates the opportunity for individuals small groups and non-state actors to be far more powerful than they have ever had the opportunity to be in the past and able to direct their message globally as much as locally instantaneously like they have never been able to do so before that means we're going to see in different forms and different reasons and different places a continuing issue largely in the law-and-order space of terrorism as at the same time we are dealing with the scale and challenges of great powers and guess one of the artifacts of Australian Defence planning over decades has been the ten year warning time concept which I guess was most clearly articulated by Paul did many years ago when he in the 87 Mike paper made the case that we would have at least 10 years warning time of being able to assess the likelihood of a country harboring an intent intent to attack Australia because it would take about that long for those that country to make those preparations I guess we see at less these days in contemporary strategic thinking but is it still a plane vehicle and and would you say are we inside that 10-year time frame now from a defence planning point of view so if you think about a few ideas of their moment we had the end of history and that didn't quite work out and we do sometimes talk about the end of geography and in a cyber sense that's probably true in a space sense to a certain degree that is true a certain degree in the hard power realities of air land and sea military operations geography matters and so warning time like geography and history hasn't gone away but it's become more nuance what exactly are you speaking of being warned of in the most advanced technologies a hypersonic weapon traveling somewhere between let's say mark 5 and mark 16 you might have warning but you might not be able to do anything with that warning so in that sense warning time is is perhaps moot in the cyber realm I think it doesn't exist you know after the event but in many aspects of military consideration and broader national security consideration it still has relevance as soon as you make an idea like warning time more nuanced and complex though it becomes left less difficult to communicate and perhaps less useful in capstone documents that are trying to explain in the broadest of senses national strategic policy intent Angus let's talk Pacific step up we've got the PM I think as we speak flying to to Vaalu for the civic islands forum today and I think we all welcome the very significant policy effort that the government is putting into regrowing if that's the right term relations with the Pacific Island countries can you take us through defense as part in that and you know how do you see that evolving over the next little while I want to start by saying step up not start up Australia and the asan Defence Force has been working in the South Pacific for 101 years since our first humanitarian assistance disaster relief operation into the Pacific in response to the outbreak of Spanish influenza in Samoa and Tonga in November and December of 1918 so I'm very proud of that and that presence has been true ever since the Defence Force is actively engaged in working with security partners through the Pacific and we are a a constant that can be assumed if invited by those nations when there might be a tsunami issue a cyclone event something that requires that more immediate response assistance I'm pleased to see the work that is going on to develop the Blackrock peacekeeping and training facility in Fiji that will be a facility accessible and intended by the Fijian government for regional partners to develop their peacekeeping skills and capacity and I think that's a very positive way then the Pacific island community can contribute more widely internationally at the same time we now see the delivery of the third and shortly the fourth of the in class patrol boats the vanguard of the Pacific maritime security program replacing the Pacific patrol boat program a network of very impressive patrol boats with enhanced aerial surveillance and within time and defined by that Pacific community a fusion center to link and collate data understand the situation pass it out and enable Pacific island nations more than ever before to better control and manage their maritime resource and for a community that described itself and I think quite aptly and appropriately as the blue continent it is the maritime resource that is the greatest wealth and opportunity for their future so that's a huge contribution well at the same time we have training teams mobile mentoring teams and so forth actively engaging throughout the southwest Pacific I've been up in Papua New Guinea recently and you can see not just the quality of the work being done but the very tangible appreciation by our our partners and neighbors so I'm very pleased I'm quietly proud I think that the hallmark of this work is about listening so what that Pacific island community seeks and understand how in the security sector we can make a contribution we don't do this in isolation the New Zealanders the United States Japan many countries working together and it's a very positive thing to see - I know you're personally interested in and committed to the relationship with Papua New Guinean PNG is is different from the other Pacific Island countries it will I think within a decade have a population of around 10 million or so it's a significant country with its own set of strategic interests how do you think about that relationship and what are your objectives in terms of the cooperation with the PNG DF and Papua New Guinea more generally sure just context setting it's our closest neighbor and sadly a lot of Australians don't actually know that and I'm quite serious about that it's four kilometres from Australia depending on the tides and the the conditions for kilometers from Australia it now has a population estimated variously somewhere between seven and a half and eleven million people all right so let's say eight and a half million people and it's anticipated that population will double in about 15 years so 20 million and in 15 years so this is a it's a big country in comparative population terms to Australia as well as it's an order of magnitude in scale larger than any of the other Pacific Island countries that we engage with it's also resource rich but it has many challenges of a nation that has those resources has some fragile economic social environmental and political settings and it has been a partner in development assistance work more broadly and in defence engagement for a very long time that work with the public and in defence force and the strong defence force has been about building professional standards capacity governance and administration and to listen to how they wish to see that force evolve and grow to be a contributor to the security of Patna Guinea to the resource security of the maritime environment that Papa New Guinea controls and also to be an influence in to the bulging youth population in Patna unique through a cadet scheme all of these things are I think an important contribution by Australia but within one sector to our nearest neighbor and of course the Development Assistance Program covers a range of sectors to my mind it is a country that we should know much more about and we should see Australians much more actively engaged and for those who go who actually visit Patna Guinea it is a fascinating extraordinary diverse and culturally rich environment with people who are to my mind extraordinary and worth worth caring about stunningly beautiful country Manus is obviously a place to talk about in the context of now how do you describe as a joint PNG Australia possibly us facility what's your thinking about that how would you like to see that developer say over five years or so so there is a putting an intense force maritime element patrol both space at long Burum on the eastern end of the island of Manus this is a sovereign putting in and fence Force Base and it is going to continue to be such our work in developing that joint facility is to see the Patna Guinean maritime element patrol boat capacity enhanced so as to assure their operation of the four Guardian class patrol boats that Australia is progressively gifting to puppy Guinea one last year and three more over the next three four years what we want to be confident is that they have the facilities they have the capacity they have the training support and the technical support to be able to operate those patrol boats from their sovereign base and that that base has the infrastructure and the sustainability to see the patrol boat effort a significant contributor to the control of and the right revenue flow of patna Guinea resources and resource extraction through in the civil fisheries sector coming into part Muni and at the same time that they can operate with near neighbours and form part of a wider maritime community now this effort is in its early days and it's going to be a 1 which is progressive and developmental but I think it offers great possibility and so we're very pleased to be there United States with us and put me in in defense force and put me in giving government I think leading in terms of what it is they want and what it is that they welcome from our efforts to contribute and develop that base base established in the Second World War and has been a pup medium base ever since of critical strategic importance and they've been the Second World War is their model of what the Australian presence will look like they're going forward I know but I think it's going to be focused and we'll progressively develop is it's going to be focused on how do we contribute to the building of the consolidation the maturity of that maritime element and then ask the question are there next steps that logically support the relationship between Australia and and focused on the maritime environment okay next next question in this strategic workout it's us we just had asthma and obviously you would have been closely involved in that one key how comes from an Australian defense perspective there is no question in my mind our alliance is strong its deep its enduring and the conversations the discussions were very positive constructive with opportunity being knowledged on both sides for continuing development in areas of capability developments in the depth and quality of our training and our exercise relationship in working in new areas for Australia or advancing areas of cooperation in aspects such as cyber or the effects than emerging from space I was very pleased and a real sense that the Alliance is not an old thing it is something that is made new on every occasion that we engage and there is absolutely opportunity and capacity to build and grow further the relationship between our two nations now of course you know I focus in the defense base but this is a relationship that is extraordinarily broad deep comprehensive and having just come from Perth over the weekend with an opportunity to engage with the Australian United States leadership dialogue you can see with 12 congressional representatives in attendance of that dialogue it's a relationship that if not unique it's one of those few relationships in the world that is extraordinary absolutely worth continuing to develop Angus I don't know if you've read Hugh White's new book how to defend Australia $32 95 at any good book shop actually you don't need to you can you can read my review free available on the strategist site but how do you respond to Hugh's argument that you know the u.s. simply can no longer be relied upon to I guess meet its alliance commitments in the Asia Pacific region yeah I am is Mark Twain also who reminders that rumors of my my death may be premature yeah I look like I am NOT a supporter of that of that thesis at all . and how many times do you have to have very very senior members of the United States policy community on both sides of the aisle moving through the indo-pacific engaging speaking with reminding of and affirming before you go yeah they actually have been here since the White Fleet and they're probably going to stay here and if you believe that the business of you know the business of United States is business that's the business of businesses business yeah that that phrase that that the the you know the business United States is busy if that's all your view is and business is aggregating to a center of gravity in the indo-pacific there is absolutely no logic to this view that the United States will not be engaged and presence in the indo-pacific now I realize that Hugh is speaking of a particular strategic construct and a view that I think he articulates in a very eloquent and intentionally logic driven pathway but to me it is a with apologies to a person whose intellect and contribution I deeply deeply admire but I think who is presenting what I described as a theoretical construct as opposed to an applied construct and in there in the applied world where we actually live there's so much more nuance so much more gray in the conversation so I don't come to his conclusions and I have read your review and I've read a few others as well I don't feel alone in this however I would ask you to consider to look at all sides of a conversation it the worst thing to be in a democracy is to be a an autocracy of single thought so absolutely engage in an analysis of what Hugh says or what I say what Peter says and then engage your thought in what you think about this he's just wrong isn't he that's what you're trying to say I think Cydia and it's a great morning to be here at SV moving right along folks so let's quickly touch on Southeast Asia you know one of the things which has been I think a core objective of Australian policy documents for decades has been the the aspiration to make more of the relationship with in Indonesia than we have been able to do what what's your sense of you know why that has been such a challenge to build that type of relationship and and what would be your own aspirations for what we could and should be doing with the Indonesians so I've been a week and a half ago spent some time with my counterpart Panglima air chief marshal Chi donto up in Georgia Carter and this is at the high-level committee discussions that we hold on an annual basis extremely warm extremely engaging constructive forward-looking with a very wide range of common interests and an aspiration to further drive the development of our defence and security relationship I'm very positive about that I think that Indonesia is and has always been in our strategic policy conception an extraordinarily important country to Australia and to our region it continues to be so and the relationship is strong and going in the right direction and I think in a very very positive way hmm so we are conducting complex exercise activities with Indonesia we saw an Indonesian squadron come down for exercise pitch black last year we've seen opportunities across the range of our defence space to engage this is all good and I'm very confident we'll continue I'd agree with that and and I must say from an Aspie perspective you know we have a pretty close regular strategic dialogue with Indonesian counterparts and I can see that that conversation is changing it's actually becoming much more Frank and engaged and I hope that you're right that we're on a really good potentially good path here so look we're coming pretty close to the end of of the session CDFI I'll close by asking you this one I'd say you've been in the job now for a year and a month and and I have encountered that the days has there been anything that surprised you about the job what what has pleased you as you've gone around looking at the organization and what if anything has disappointed you Thanks no I haven't been surprised which is nice it kind of means that after quite a few years working within the defense and wider government the pathway of development actually got you there as a as a person who sort of understood the system around you and wasn't surprised by anything I think the the thing that most pleases me and consistently impresses me is the quality of our people and the quality of our people at least by comparison to my own sense of what I was like at different levels and circumstances in my own career so I go all the way to the origins at Australian Defence Force Academy and the Military College is the single service military colleges that is an extraordinary generation of young Australians or perhaps I should say it is a representative of an extraordinary generation of young opinion Australians who give me great confidence in our future now there are lots of challenges in the world and we've spoken of some of them in issues such as great power contests terrorism and so forth but rather than dwell on what are the challenges I'll the people who are going to be the inspiration the innovation the generators of initiative and opportunity to solve those challenges and I am a person who looks at the world glass half-full and with a belief that the future presents great opportunity and possibility and not in a narrow and Australia only sense but in a community of our region and of the world where we can write that history rather than wringing our hands and worry about it and that's a good place to be extraordinary privilege to find myself to achieve that offense for us even more extraordinary to realize the amazing talent that is supporting Australia within that defence force Angus I've worked with a number of your predecessors very closely in the job and I'm with you closely in in different jobs I know how demanding the CDF job can be what are your personal techniques for sort of coping with the pressure how do you do that yeah try to get some sleep try to do some exercise try to avoid eating yellow food as my wife says you know party pies and sausage rolls yellow food and I I'm I'm very happy to occasionally dive into a completely mindless piece of you know pulp science fiction to talking about particles again to step away from the door but I'm I'm not a person who goes to sleep anxiously worrying I find that many solutions emerge from a good night's rest and that you do have to as you progress through your career personal professional life you do have to take care of yourself and that enables you to sustain the fairly constant routine and rigors of this job or any other job so everyone has a pathway to me it's it's a simple life but it is one full of both the challenge of a world in change and also the energy that that gives to come to work every morning and think well what are we going to be talking about today and how can we move this conversation forward it is an extraordinary time to be in the national security space to be in defense to be in Australia Angus from my part I must say I've I've I've never met a party pie I didn't like I agree with you on the sleep front absolutely it's been a brilliant conversation thank you so much for taking the time can you please think bangers can [Applause] you

Channel: ASPICanberra

Views: 4,727

Rating: 4.6111112 out of 5

Keywords: aspi, general angus campbell, ADF, political warfare, greyzones

Id: QYhgpnvlZFs

Length: 49min 24sec (2964 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 18 2019